Towson Tigers head coach Pat Skerry talks with forward Marcus Damas (1) during the second half of a game this season. / Howard Smith, USA TODAY Sports

by Eric Prisbell, USA TODAY Sports

by Eric Prisbell, USA TODAY Sports

As 30 men's basketball conference tournaments tip off over the next two weeks - starting Tuesday - nine programs will find themselves sidelined, ineligible because of poor progress in the classroom.

The punishment for a substandard NCAA Academic Progress Rate will be particularly hard-hitting for a team such as Towson, which moved to 18-13 on Saturday after a 1-31 mark last season. The single-season turnaround is the biggest in NCAA history and enabled Towson to clinch second place in the Colonial Athletic Association.

Coach Pat Skerry said he is appreciative of how hard his players competed this season, knowing the CAA would not allow the team in the conference tournament and the NCAA banned it from other postseason tournaments.

"Trust me, we're all for academic reform," said Skerry, adding that his scholarship players earned a 2.94 GPA in the fall. "But I think there's a better way to institute this rule, where you can punish coaches, administrators and fine institutions, rather than penalize kids who have nothing to do with it. I wish they would hit schools more in the pocketbook."

Three-time national champion Connecticut, which likely would have been an NCAA tournament team this season, was the first school from a BCS conference to face a postseason ban solely because of the APR.

With the Catholic 7 departing for a new league and Syracuse and Pittsburgh headed to the Atlantic Coast Conference next season, this will be the last true Big East tournament in its current makeup. And the Big East said that UConn, one of the few teams that will remain with the league, would be ineligible to participate.

Each school banned fell below the mandatory cutline of 900 on four-year scores. At Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, the challenge for coach Willis Wilson has been infusing young players with a work ethic when there is no tangible reward at season's end. The Islanders finished 6-21.

"It's unfair to say it was the previous staff's fault, or that it was my fault," Wilson said. "It was a lot of people's fault. And the people that suffer the consequences are the students â?¦ Life is not fair, but what is particularly punishing is the kids who are getting penalized in this program had nothing to do with it."